UKC

Experienced climbers and mountaineers, Mark S. Lewis and Ian Blessley are attempting to climb 855 routes graded VS (Very Severe) in South and West Wales in the next six months.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Hi,

To let you know to date (8:30am 18th September 2007) we have climbed 48 routes in 10 days.

Our aim is to climb an average of six routes a day. Last week we didn't climb for two days due to inclement weather so this week we need to pull back the climbs and up our game!

Our website shows where we are every day so please feel free to drop by and see us and support us.

Mark

In reply to Mark Lewis: Best wishes! 5 weeks was bad enough for us!

Just one minor question, have you got your metres and feet muddled up?

Hard Rock was 60 routes and 22,000 feet of climbing which averaged 367 feet per route which is 112 metres.

855 routes and 100,000 metres implies 117 metres per route which doesn't seem to make sense fo routes in South and West Wales.

In reply to Mark Stevenson:

Hi Mark,

Well done for the Hard Rock Challenge, it was an impressive feat. Thanks also for your support!

In answer to your query please see below;

There are 855 routes that we are climbing. There are two climbers doing 100% of the challenge and we both have to climb each route and for part of the challenge we are accompanied by additional climbers. Therefore the average route length is more like 38mtrs.

What the challenge aims is to climb 100,000mtrs over the time allocated. We're not saying that the 855 routes add up to 100,000mtrs. We're saying that we're going to climb 855 routes and that our accumulative totals are what makes the actual 100,000mtrs.

Many Thanks

Mark Lewis

In reply to Mark Lewis: That makes sense.

Hopefully you'll get to spend more time climbing and less time walking/driving than we did.

It's great to see you publicising lots of the minor crags. Hopefully it will encourage people to get out and keep the routes clean.

I've hardly climbed anything in the area so next time I've got a spare Saturday or Sunday when I'm not heading further afield I may see where you're heading to that day.

In reply to Mark Stevenson:

No worries, it would be great to meet up. I didn't know you were from South Wales region. We learn something new everyday!

Feel free to email me direct if you wish on mark@markslewis.co.uk I can keep you upto date as to where what and how if you'd like, we send out a weekly update.

Take care

Mark

In reply to WISCM: I'm in Somerset but the Severn bridge is only 50 minutes from my house on a good day so a lot of the South Wales crags are perfectly reasonable as a day-trip.

After this summer, straightforward single-pitch crags seem quite appealling for some reason